High speed graphene oxide bolometers and methods for manufacturing the same

Abstract

Bolometers and methods of forming the same are provided. A bolometer that includes a substrate, a support structure comprising at least one SiGe layer and at least one Si layer, an absorber comprising reduced graphene oxide, and a thermistor comprising partially reduced graphene oxide are described. Also described are methods for forming bolometers and the parts contained therein.

Description

BACKGROUNDField of the Invention[0001]The present application relates generally to bolometers and methods for manufacturing the same.Description of Related Art[0002]A bolometer is a device that measures the power of incident electromagnetic radiation by measuring how much heat is generated in a material with a temperature dependent resistance. FIG. 1 is a schematic illustration of the basic components in one type of conventional bolometer. A photon 102 is absorbed by an absorber 104 having a low thermal mass. Absorber 104 is in thermal contact with film 106. Film 106 has much smaller thermal mass than absorber 104. Together absorber 104 and film 106 form a bolometer bridge assembly 107. Assembly 107 is mechanically supported by thermally isolating but electrically conductive legs 108A and 108B. Legs 108A and 108B contact terminals 109A and 109B on an electronic read-out integrated circuit (ROIC) 110.[0003]The energy of photon 102 (Eph) absorbed by absorber 104 is converted into heat...

AI Technical Summary

Problems solved by technology

As a person of ordinary skill will recognize, however, resistive bolometers require strong absorption of incoming photons, extremely low thermal mass or heat capacity of the absorber assembly 107, and high thermal isolation of this assembly.

However, there are several drawbacks to this conventional IR bolometer design.

First, the design limits the speed and spatial resolution of the bolometer.

Moreover, using lateral serpentine leg structures typically requires sacrificing area in the pixel that might otherwise be used to collect photons, reducing the optical fill-factor.

For a given G, the fill-factor decreases with pixel size, making thermal imaging arrays with pixel-pitch much less than 17 microns very difficult to manufacture, so that bolometers typically offer only modest spatial resolution by today's IR imaging standards.

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